


O Valencia! (the Happy Ending Remix)

by misura



Category: West Hell Magic Series - Devon Monk
Genre: M/M, off-screen Hawthorn Graves/Random Hazard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23264200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Duncan sticks his nose in Random's love life.
Relationships: Random Hazard & Duncan Spark
Kudos: 1





	O Valencia! (the Happy Ending Remix)

Duncan sniffed me thoroughly, then shook his head. "You and Graves _still_ haven't made it past first base? What are you _doing_? Braiding each other's hair and reciting poetry?"

"Uh," I said. 'Yes, God, please, more' might qualify as poetry - barely, but much as I loved Duncan, I didn't think he wanted to know quite that much about what Graves and me had gotten up to over the weekend.

"What?" He gave me a look. "I'm your brother. I'm worried about you."

"Don't be." That should be safe enough, right? "We're fine. Very happy together. It's all hunky-dory." Not to mention the sex was scorching-hot, to the point where I was beginning to wonder how I'd be able to get off with anyone else ever again.

Not that I had any immediate plans, but, well. Life wasn't a romance novel. Even if everything was hunky-dory right now, that didn't mean it couldn't change. Look at what had happened with me and Gen.

Duncan gave me a narrow-eyed look. "What does that mean? Even if you'd spent the weekend with a regular human, I should be able to smell them on you. And Graves is marked. His scent should be all over you. If he was serious about you - "

"He is," I assured Duncan. "Come on, Donuts. This is Graves we're talking about."

Duncan growled. "Don't care if it's Graves or Coach or the Prez or whoever. Anyone thinks they can toy with you, they're gonna be dealing with me."

Graves had certainly had some toys, though again: not the sort of information I wanted to share. "I don't really have any plans to date Coach. And I'm pretty sure the President's taken." First female President, and she was a lesbian. It seemed kind of fair, given how long it had taken us to finally elect a woman.

Duncan sighed and dropped his full weight on me. "So what is it? You showered for hours on end? You went swimming and they'd just cleaned the pool?"

"I uh, not really?" How to put this delicately? "Maybe it's Graves?"

"Damn right it's Graves!" Duncan snapped. "Nothing wrong with you! Is there?" Great. Now he sounded worried again.

"I'm fine." Clearly, my message wasn't getting through. "Graves is fine. The sex was fine."

Duncan grimaced. "Just fine?"

_Try amazing._ "All right, the sex was great. I'm great. Graves is great. Everything is great. Happy now?"

"So why don't I smell anything?" Duncan whined. "He didn't even bite you a little?"

"Uh." So very much not the sort of thing I wanted to discuss with Duncan. "Well, it's Graves."

"It's not normal!" Duncan complained. "It's ... it's unnatural, is what it is. Argh."

"He did give me something," I offered. "A necklace." _'Wear this and only this for me,'_ he'd said when he'd handed it over, and, well, it had felt like very little effort on my part for what had turned out to be one hell of a pay-off.

"Jewelry?" Duncan scoffed. Shiny things were for cats - unless you asked a cat, in which case they would deny everything. Of course, Graves wasn't anymore of a cat than I was.

On the other hand, I was pretty damn sure he wasn't a wolf, either.

"So where is it?" Duncan asked. "I want to see."

"Right here." I reached for my shirt and pulled the collar down a bit. When I'd first put it on, I'd felt its presence under my clothes all the time. Ditto when Graves had looked at me, his expression half-stunned, as if he couldn't believe I'd actually done what he'd asked.

Of course, that expression hadn't lasted only so long as it had taken me to tackle him to the bed. (Well. In all fairness, he'd more or less let me. As a D-Man, I was pretty sure Graves could've kept standing even when two of me would've rushed him.)

I'd left it on, after, almost forgetting it was there from time to time.

Duncan practically shoved his nose in my neck, breathed in deep and then yelped and recoiled as if something had stung him.

All right, so that was a bit unusual. "Duncan? You all right?"

He breathed in and out through his mouth for a while before he replied. "Holy shit."

"I take it you can tell I'm taken after all." I surprised myself a bit by being more than all right with that. Sure, a heads-up would've been nice, and I was definitely going to bring this up with Graves next time I saw him, but - well. He'd asked. I'd agreed. So what if there were a few things he hadn't told me about the thing I'd put around my neck? As long as it wasn't going to try to strangle me in my sleep, I could live with that.

"Uh, yeah. Definitely." Duncan still sounded seriously freaked. "That's some major 'Do Not Touch' stuff right there, Ran."

"You know you can, though, right?" If Graves thought he could stop me from touching Duncan, we were going to have words. And a swift ending to our relationship.

"I guess." Duncan's tone was a bit dubious. "I mean, hell yeah. Not like I'm going to let anybody stop me." That sounded more like the Duncan I knew and loved. "Screw Graves if he thinks he can."

_Did that already._ Reassured, I pulled down my collar, covering the golden necklace again. I felt Duncan relax almost immediately, as if as long as it was out of sight, he also couldn't smell it.

Which, now that I thought about it, kind of seemed to be how it worked. Which was weird, because that sure wasn't how it was supposed to work.

Duncan sighed and wriggled around a bit. "I missed you, you know. House just wasn't the same without you."

"Couldn't sleep without someone to hold your hand?"

"I'm happy for you," Duncan said. "You and Graves - you look good together."

Well. Didn't I feel like a jerk now. "Thanks. That means something to me."

"About time you got serious about someone, anyway. You're not getting any younger or prettier, you know. Plus, with me right next to you, you were always going to look like the second-best choice."

"Keep telling yourself that, Donuts," I said.

_'Look at you, you're beautiful. You're magic,'_ Graves had said. Though even without him, I'd known that I had nothing to be ashamed of in the looks department.

"Uh. Please tell me you're thinking about Graves right now," Duncan said.

"What? I can't just be happy to see you again, too?" I teased, though I was pretty sure I was blushing just a bit, too. Not that Duncan being able to smell how I felt was anything new, but still.

Duncan wriggled around a bit more, then sighed and closed his eyes and went to sleep.


End file.
